


Dreams of Small Beings

by disko_lemonade



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Magical Realism, Weird Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 10:04:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16808476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disko_lemonade/pseuds/disko_lemonade
Summary: Children at an ice rink meet for the first time.





	Dreams of Small Beings

[**i.** ](https://youtu.be/MA48l1su-Fo) “I’ve never noticed you here,” a boy murmurs. She jolts a little, surprised by the swirling puff of air his words produce in the shell of her ear. 

She turns on the ball of one foot, her slipper making the softest _shh_ noise against the concrete, and sees a dark-haired boy no more than a year or two older than her leaning against the chipped whitewash of the small town arena. He wears a smirk as loose as the grey scarf twirled twice about his neck. 

“I’ve just arrived,” she tells him. “I’ve never been here before.”

“I live here.” The boy says this proudly, chest puffed out in his white cotton thermal.

“At the skating club?”

“Practically. My house is just across the parking lot and I’m here every day.”

“So you know how to skate well.”

“Well? I’m the best skater this place has ever seen and I’m not even ten yet!”

She struggles not to smile at his pomp and swagger, shaking her head in exaggerated disbelief, her fringe flying up in cute wisps in the wind. “Prove it.”

“I will! Come on, I gotta go get my skates!” 

He zips through the front doors and into the building, barely missing the small throng of parents waiting to pick up their kids from hockey practice. He swivels and yells back, _Sorry!_ , grinning at her with an eyebrow raised as if to charm her with his recklessness. She giggles and ducks beneath a stanchion at the skate rental station. Her slippers slap against the slightly sticky flooring, echoing his soft sneaker squeaks, and she chooses to take a moment to gaze around the enormous building, at the cork boards where flyers and photos are posted, at the banners hanging up by the rafters.

She hears someone on the far side of the rink shout, “Scott! No running!” but the voice is drowned out by the sound of the teenage hockey team chanting as they pile out of the locker room all at once, jumping onto one another, and screeching. Slowing, she indulges a keek at the hoopla from the edge of the cavernous metal foundation of the bleaches, eyes wide at the noise and vigor. Walking backward, she slips away toward the ice. An orchestral arrangement she recognizes from her ballet lessons begins playing on rink’s sound system. It steals her breath away and her lungs feel freshly laundered, crisp and cold.

Distracted, she almost trips into the boy who’s stopped at a large gym bag abandoned in the stands.

“I left my stuff in my Aunt’s car and she said she’d leave me it here. These are my skates,” he drops down and quickly rips into the bag. He unearths a pair of brand new hockey skates and sets them at his side. Gazing at them, she watches as he traces the sharp crimson design on the side of the boot, taking the time to scrub away a nonexistent speck of dirt with his glove. 

“You’re a hockey player?” she asks. Her hands clasp behind her back. Lip caught between her teeth, she studies the floor. 

She can feel his eyes on her when he answers, “Yeah! Well, I mean, I’m not that good at hockey, but I am the fastest skater. Really. I am.”

“I believe you.”

“Good.”

Her head tilts up, evergreen eyes alit, toothy grin fully on display. “But I think _I_ could be better…”

The boy smacks his face before pinwheeling his arms, pretending to fall off the bench in disbelief. Little pieces of hair come undone from her impeccable bun as she bends over hooting at his antics.

“Oh yeah,” he trumpets, “you are _so_ on!” 

He unearths a pair of well-loved black figure skates from the same gym bag while simultaneously toeing off his sneakers. 

“Wait until you see me in these! You’re toast,” he crows, shoving his thermal sleeves up and then ripping at the laces.

That’s when she sees them. The joints, just beneath the small curve of his biceps and above the pale stretch of his forearms before they disappear into the leather black of his gloves, snapped together and screwed in. The rounded nub of his upper arm fits perfectly into the carved socket of his lower to create a hinge where a person’s elbow articulates beneath flesh. But this boy—his skin isn’t skin because skin doesn’t need metal to pin its pieces together. Her hands fly to her mouth and she gasps.

“Oh!” 

He freezes. His head snaps up and when his scarf slips to the side, her gaze falls to the faint line that circles his neck. His bright hazel eyes widen to match her own knowing exactly what she means by her single exclamation. 

“I ca—“

“You’re not a boy at all!”

He drops his skates to the floor with startling force and jumps up out of his seat, “I _am_ a boy!”

And then she begins to laugh. Her laughter springs from her belly and rattles her ribcage, runs so quick through her that her cheeks turn bright pink from the burn of it. Her laughter is deep and sweet like hot chocolate made from syrup. Her laughter is good. It coats everything in warmth.

“I’m not a girl, too!”

“What the—?”

She giggles as she pulls off her giant pink mitts, one and then the other, throwing them somewhere by the boy’s skates. Thrusting her hands toward his face, he takes a few seconds to glance down because her wild eyes arrest his gaze, but once he does, he too gasps.

Her hands are porcelain, smooth and cool to the touch, with a sweet blush color blended onto each knuckle. The knuckles themselves are much like the boy’s elbows. Delicate and complex hinge joints that bend with the same range of motion as bone and tendons, and she flutters and flexes them like insect legs. 

“You’re not a girl,” the boy whispers as slips off his own gloves. He brings his fingertips up to dance along with her own, the faintest touch, his hands thicker and bulkier and more obviously screwed together than hers. 

“And you’re not a boy,” she breathes back. 

She hears the dulcet _whirr_ of his mechanical heart. Her own hums in response. 


End file.
